Evernorth brings the power of wonder and relentless
innovation to create world class pharmacy, care, and
benefit solutions.
Barriers to care can lead to gaps in
care, which can drive up the total cost
of care. Our capabilities work seamlessly together to
create innovative pharmacy care and benefit solutions for
today and tomorrow.
Our connected health services make the treatment, prediction,
and prevention of health care's most complex conditions
easier and more accessible as we drive organizations
and people forward.
This is Haley Recker with the Becker's Payer
Podcast, and we are recording live at the
Becker's third annual spring payer issues roundtable.
I am thrilled today to be joined by
Chrissy Torino,
chief plan officer and interim chief operating officer
at CountyCare Health Plan. Chrissy, thank you so
much for joining me today. Can you go
ahead and share a little bit about yourself
and your background? Sure. I'm happy to. Good
morning. My name is Chrissy Torino. I'm the
chief plan officer and chief operating officer at
CountyCare Health Plan. We're a Medicaid managed care
plan with just over 410,000
lives here in Cook County. So we're owned
by Cook County Health
and which is the biggest safety net health
system here in Cook County.
And we are a four star plan by
NCQA
and,
are really dedicated to health equity and improving
the health of our members.
Well, thank you so much for that introduction.
I'd like to start our conversation off today
talking about health equity, which has become a
critical focus for many health plans. Can you
share an overview of a key initiative here
that you're involved in or particularly
excited about, and what are you hoping to
achieve?
Sure. So Cook County Health and CountyCare,
have really led the way from a state
perspective in health equity efforts.
We
have had over from a Cook County health
perspective, had over a hundred and eighty year
history of doing health equity and supporting folks
from a safety net perspective.
And during the pandemic, we had the opportunity
of
investing our quality withhold funds to invest in
housing. So we invested $5,000,000 in the flexible
housing pool. It's a partnership of government and
other organizations
to fund housing for individuals for a period
of three years, including tenancy supports.
And we were able to house 67 members,
and since that time have seen, really great
outcomes from a a health equity perspective.
Well, thank you so much for going into
such great detail there. I kinda wanna pivot
the conversation a little bit to member satisfaction.
So member satisfaction is essential to thrive in
today's competitive health care landscape.
What experience or engagement strategies have proven effective
for you? Sure.
So member engagement really begins by asking members
what they want. So we do enroll enrollee
advisory councils, we do post call surveys, and
we also conduct telephonic poll surveys every other
month with members to ask them about their
satisfaction on a variety of benefits.
And we really wanna make sure that members,
know that we are here for them. And
so we have a multichannel, omnichannel
support system including an outreach team that did
over 240
events over the last year to help people
with redetermination, but it's also a front door
so that people can get services from us
and and know where to find us. So
we, during that time, served,
over 10,000 county care members and over 13,000
community members.
Well, that's absolutely fascinating.
You know, we've talked a lot about the
imperative to reduce costs, improve quality, and advance
health care equity, none of which are small
tasks.
How do you approach aligning these priorities in
your organization's strategic vision?
So the main way that we've done this
is through value based care. We're a provider
owned and and led health plan, as I
mentioned. And CountyCare has really focused on improving
quality of care, health outcomes, and access by
reducing the transactional nature of care through value
based care arrangements with our providers.
So, in 2024,
almost 60% of our spend was a value
based care arrangement. We also delegate care management
and really believe that medical care,
is best done in the medical home as
is,
care management and making sure that people have
that relationship and that trusted relationship with their
medical home.
And before we wrap up here, I'd like
to get your thoughts on the future of
the payer space.
So what do you think is leading the
charge in transforming care delivery and driving better
outcomes for all stakeholders?
I think it's going more upstream in supporting
people with housing, food, and other services that
really impact their health. It's no longer gonna
be just about
the transactional nature of healthcare. It's about supporting
people in their communities.
So that's why we've made an investment in
housing. We also have a food program where
we've supported our members with getting access to
registered dietitians, but also,
food prescriptions in their homes.
Well, thank you so much for joining me
today. Again, this is Haley Recker with the
Becker's Payer Podcast recorded live at the Becker's
third annual spring Payer Issues Roundtable. Chrissy, thank
you so much. Thanks for having me.